


Wink-Wink, Nudge-Nudge

by fightthosefairies



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 15x11 coda, Cas and Dean just wanted to talk, Cas's deal with the Shadow is very much a factor here, Dean Winchester cuddles someone (sorta)?!, Dean has hope again, Dean is a soft boy and he's not afraid to show it anymore, Determined!Dean Winchester, Flirting, Fluffy, Heart-to-Heart, Heartwarming, M/M, Plotty but not plot heavy, Post-15x09 Dean Winchester, Post-Prayer Dean Winchester, Snuggling, Tissues might be a good idea, Unbetaed - We die like men!, no smut!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-02-19 12:54:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22544656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fightthosefairies/pseuds/fightthosefairies
Summary: Post 15x11.  Dean's having a little drink in the kitchen to celebrate Jack's return.  He and Cas have a much-needed talk and Cas lets the Empty deal out of the bag, finally.
Relationships: Castiel & Jack Kline, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Jack Kline
Comments: 12
Kudos: 269





	1. Chapter 1

Cas finds him in the kitchen, back against the kitchen island. He’s tucked away, out of sight, between the stoves and the fridge, but rather than looking like some poor put-upon fairy tale stepchild, Dean Winchester looks... at peace.   
  
“I thought I might find you here,” he says, tone warm as he slowly eases himself onto the floor next to Dean, hands folded together in his lap.   
  
“Good guess,” Dean grants, his smile small, but as warm as the one in Cas’s words. “Everybody else turn in?”  
  
Cas nods. “Jack requires less sleep, now, than he did, b -- before,” he stumbles over the word, unavoidable but still frustrating, like the root of some enormous tree. “But he ... he missed his room.”  
  
When Cas chances a peek at him, he finds Dean watching him with limpid green eyes. “It’s good to have him back,” he agrees. “Have him home.”  
  
“Yes.” Cas’s answer is emphatic.   
  
“To have... have _you_ home,” Dean adds softly, fingers carefully tracing the edge of the glass tumbler he cradles in his hand.   
  
Cas sucks in a sharp breath, without meaning to, and he finds himself wishing his grace were still as strong as it once was, so he could _control_ these reactions more effectively. But the more human he is, the more vulnerable he is, and the more vulnerable he makes himself. He _knew_ it, and yet he still sought out the hunter, anyway. _And he tells **Dean** to stop being stupid..._  
  
Hearing that noise, Dean looks up and their eyes meet, lock together like magnets, his brows furrowing. “Cas?”  
  
“There’s -- there’s something I need to tell you,” he says, words coming out hopelessly choked.   
  
“Cas, you can tell me anything,” Dean offers, lifting up one shoulder in a shrug. He doesn’t tear his eyes away from Cas’s face for a moment. A fisherman by nature, he can’t help but throw out a line. He’s too smart and he has a hunch. “You know, don’t you. What I was gonna say.”  
  
Cas pointedly wrenches his eyes away from Dean’s own, hands tightening their grip around each other as he nods.   
  
“But you don’t want me to say it?” Dean whispers. He bites down hard on his lip for a moment but then releases it, tears welling slowly. “Do you -- do you not --”  
  
“Dean, **_no_** \-- it --” he shakes his head, hard, until he feels dizzy and he groans as he lets his head thunk back against the cabinet.   
  
“What?” And, still, even now - Dean seems sad more than angry, concerned more than belligerent, and these changes in him have left Cas speechless. “Cas, man, c’mon... talk to me. I -- you know, I want things to be different, with us. It... it feels -- I dunno, it feels important.”   
  
Dean fidgets with his glass for another brief moment, rolling it between his palms, before he tips it back and polishes off the last of his whisky, setting the glass aside. Wiping his mouth against the back of his wrist, he mimics Cas’s posture, long legs stretched out of in front of him, crossed at the ankles, hands clasped in his lap.   
  
“You’re important,” he says, finally, eyes straying back over to Cas’s face again. “To Jack, and to Sam, and ... me.” Cas inhales a slow, shaky breath and it’s like he’s bracing himself without realizing it - he hasn’t squeezed his eyes shut, yet, but it’s a near thing.   
  
“I made a deal,” Cas blurts out, staring hard at the third knob in from the right on the stove. “When -- when we lost him, Jack went to Heaven and the Empty, it... came for him. It _wanted_ him. It killed several angels in the assault, when the Host could spare so few losses, already. Jack was part angel, and angels go to the Empty, but I _couldn’t_ \-- I couldn’t let it -- not when we were _so close_ to getting him back. So close to being a family again.”  
  
Cas just about jumps out of his skin when he feels a warm weight settle on his right shoulder, and glances down to find Dean has rested his head there.   
  
“Dean?” He asks softly, feeling even more lost and confused than he usually does where his mercurial charge is involved.   
  
“We’ll figure it out,” Dean replies, his tone wavering ever so slightly before evening out again. His hand reaches out, hovering over Cas’s curled fist for a moment before lightly settling atop it. A barely-there flinch from Cas has him gently stroking his thumb over the back of Castiel’s hand, slow and steady like he’s soothing a startled animal.   
  
Thanks to his failing grace, Cas can feel every single touch, but in spite of himself, his hand relaxes and he lets out a ragged breath as his fingers entwine with Dean’s. He lets his head tip to the side, resting atop Dean’s own on his shoulder, and they hold on tight.   
  
“M’not mad. I just -- I only just got you back,” he says, some moments later, his voice sounding so much softer, smaller than usual. “I’m not lettin’ you go this time, Cas. I know what -- I know what Chuck _wants_ us to do, what he wants us to be, how he sees this whole story turning out, but... that’s not us.” He gives Cas’s hand a squeeze, thumb tenderly caressing the creases and lines along the side of his hand. “I’m not lettin’ you go again.”  
  
“Dean --” Cas begins again, lifting his head to favor Dean with a troubled glower.  
  
“No, Cas - dammit, if I can’t say what I _wanted_ to say, then I gotta say what I _can_ , right?” He fires back as he meets Castiel’s gaze, unflinching and utterly shameless. “I’m not sure - like, how does it even work? Your deal?”  
  
Cas reaches for the fifth-size bottle, unscrews the lid, and takes a good slug of the contents before he trusts himself to speak. “I offered myself up to the Shadow, for it to take me then and there instead of Jack. It accepted, but with certain conditions. The Shadow said it wanted to wait until I gave myself permission to be happy, and then it would come for me. Once I finally allowed the sun to shine on my face.”  
  
It’s Dean’s turn, then, to suck in a breath like he’s taken an upper-cut to the midsection, but he recovers admirably. His grasp tightens around Castiel’s hand.   
  
“It feels like I don’t know much about anything, anymore,” he murmurs. “But I _do_ know that you were right.” Pushing himself up from his slouch against the counter, he twists in his seat to face Castiel, the fingers of his other hand curling at the cuff of his trench coat.   
  
Dean thinks better of it and reaches up, hand settling on Cas’s cheek in much the same way he’d done with Jack earlier in the evening. The difference now, though, is that Dean’s thumb lightly strokes back and forth over Castiel’s cheekbone, the touch every bit as hesitant as the one from before, but for _completely_ different reasons.   
  
His eyes rove over Cas’s face, taking in every minute detail, but there’s no urgency to it - no rush brought on by the looming threat of the Empty coming for the angel. “You were right, Cas, and I should have listened. I should have listened to you, right from the very beginning,” he sighs. 

“Dean, I don’t blame you,” Cas insists.  
  
“Maybe not, but **I** blame me. Because it really was my fault this time, Cas. I hurt you and it felt like -- like after that, there was no goin’ back,” he mutters under his breath, gaze falling from Castiel’s face. “All those years, all that time I spent, shoulderin’ everybody else’s weight, and I -- I carried it, because it’s just what we do. How Dad taught us.” His lips curl down at the corners and he reaches up with his free hand, rubs hard at a spot between his eyebrows. “How he taught _me_.”   
  
For just a moment, Cas thinks he sees the thunderheads starting to gather, Dean’s old, familiar rage thrashing its way to the surface. Just the barest, briefest flicker of it, but then, just like that - the frown is gone, the creases in his forehead smooth away. Dean gives his head a tiny shake, like a dog fresh out of the bath, and glances up at Cas furtively.   
  
“But this... with you,” he whispers, “it’s never been that. It’s never been a weight.” Ducking his head, his tongue sneaks out to wet his suddenly parched lips. “I want you to know that. Because that’s important, too.”  
  
“Ohh, Dean.” Cas’s eyes wince closed, lips pressing together to hold in a sob.   
  
“I shoulda told you so long ago, and I -- goddammit, Cas, you have any idea how much I wanna kick my own ass right now?”  
  
“What?” The laughter bubbles out suddenly and Dean’s never heard this laugh come out of him before; it’s its own kind of dorky, throaty, musical delightfulness.   
  
“No, I’m serious! Just think about -- all the times we coulda been... all the time we had to, that we coulda -- just -- _free and clear_ , and then ...” Dean lets his head land against the side of the cabinet with a clunk and a sigh. “Damn it.”  
  
“But you’re not mad?” Cas asks, not so much seeking confirmation of it as marveling at the reality of the notion.   
  
“ _Mad_ ly in love, maybe,” he says, a bashful smile shaping his full lips. As Cas watches, his cheeks bloom a fascinating shade of bright pink beneath all the freckles. He reaches up with his free hand, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I really just went and made it that cornball, huh. Damn.”  
  
“Is cornball a ... bad thing?” Metatron had crammed his brain full of so much pop culture but had not provided any kind of angel-to-human context legend for him to make any sense of all he’d been shown.   
  
Dean’s green eyes were gleaming as he met Cas’s gaze, then, his smile still shy but openly adoring. “No. No, you’re right. It’s not. I mean... he’s home, you’re home,” he says quietly, smile lingering as he disentangles their fingers. His fingertips trail over the length of Castiel’s own, one by one; sweetly idle twiddling that makes Cas’s heart ignite. “It’s not cornball to be happy ‘cause something good happened... I mean, right?”  
  
But there’s that word again. Happy.  
  
“Right,” Cas agrees readily, eyes resting on their hands, still clasped together between them. His tongue sneaks out to flicker over his lips, the only outward sign anything might be amiss. “Dean, it’s not because I don’t -- or I didn’t, I -- that was never the problem. Does that... make any sense?”  
  
“I... think?” But even Dean’s not entirely sure, himself.   
  
“My apologies,” he huffs, casting him a troubled look. “I find, so often, my words take leave of me when you’re close. But... you’re right; this is important.” Cas takes a moment and a breath along with it, collecting his thoughts. “I’ve known how you felt about me for... ten years, now.”  
  
“Ten y -- _huh?!_ ” Dean blinks at him.  
  
Castiel favors him with a long, meaningful look. “When Zachariah was keeping you in the beautiful white room, I told you then that I could see inside you. Your guilt, your confusion, your anger, but ... that wasn’t all of it. That wasn’t everything,” he finishes, words hushed. “Even then, we still barely knew one another, but I could already feel your longing, your... devotion. I didn’t have words, then, for what those feelings were, or what they meant, but it felt like glory, to me. Warm and enveloping, like my Father’s love once was.”  
  
“You -- y-you really felt all that?” He mumbles, the blush on his cheeks spreading clear up to the tips of his ears.   
  
Cas nods. “But the confusion, the... shame,” he trails off, dark brows knitting together. “It felt unfair, to you. To burden you with that knowledge when everything you were facing was already so overwhelming. It was... it was not my place.”  
  
“No, you know what? That’s where you’re wrong, Cas,” Dean counters. “It was your place. You fought beside us, put everything on the line for us --”  
  
“For you.” Cas corrects him, like he’s just telling Dean the time, but the matter-of-fact response has Dean’s heart twittering away in his chest.  
  
Dean’s speech loses steam and he sputters to a stop, laughing helplessly as he rests his forehead against Cas’s shoulder. “We’ll fix it, Cas,” he promises. “I don’t know how, but we’ll find something. I’ve got you now and I don’t intend on letting go any time soon. Well. Ever, actually.” He lifts his head, brows wrinkled. “You b’lieve me?”  
  
“I... believe that _you_ believe we can fix this,” Cas replies carefully, forcing a wistfulness into his tone while that familiar tactical sneaky look dances in his eyes.  
  
Of course, Dean catches on instantly. “Damn right, I do,” he fires back with a cocky grin.  
  
Something about that look makes Cas’s heart trip over itself, somehow. “But if ever we -- if there ever comes a time where we...” he sighs, words grinding to a halt and he presses his hand gently against Dean’s chest and Dean can _feel_ the way his arm is trembling. “I have every intention of making my... perspective on this matter... _explosively_ clear, to you.”  
  
Dean nods, his eyes vivid green and gleaming with heat, like asphalt on a desert highway. 

“Sounds awesome, can’t wait,” he says, the tip of his tongue peeking out from between his teeth, grinning so hard his cheeks start to hurt.


	2. Lights on the Shoreline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Cas have another conversation in the kitchen, this one much more emotional than the last one. Set sometime during season 15.

Something sets Dean off. He doesn’t mean for it to, but it does. It really does.  
  
Cas makes some kind of crack about dying - “again,” he grumps into his cup of tea, acid in his voice - and something about it just makes Dean bolt up out of his seat, so fast that the chair gets knocked back. It lands with a loud THWACK! on the wood floor and slides a foot and a half back, such is the force of Dean’s alarm.

Sam and Jack both flinch and look in the direction of the noise, then up at Dean with matching looks of worry, and Cas is staring at him, his eyes seeming so much more blue than usual, round with shock and startlement. There’s just a beat, as Dean meets their eyes in quick, circular succession, before he lurches his way towards the kitchen, booted feet stomping off in a strong, hard march.   
  
It’s only after he gets in the galley that he realizes - _shit_ , no door to slam shut, so no one can _see_ what’s going on in here - and he curses under his breath. Spinning about, he’s scratching a hand through his hair as he does a quick U-turn and makes for the door he’d just come through.  
  
But Cas is there, in his way, instead. Blocking his escape without even realizing what he’s doing, head tilted in that way that he doesn’t do much, anymore - because he **understands** so much more, now, about everything. But then, his feelings were never that much of a secret, to Castiel.   
  
One of the very first things he ever said was ‘what’s the matter? you don’t think you deserve to be saved?’ - as though trying to coax Dean towards his own destiny, convince him that he’s worthy of it without even realizing it in the moment. He saw, he always saw - and he was never a secret, not to Cas, and it felt like shelter. Like a home he was uncomfortable in, caught up as he was, because he’d never really _had_ a home before, so he had no idea what true safety and peace felt like. No idea what to do with himself when he essentially got handed those things on a silver platter. But... looking at Cas now, so fondly confused and worried for him... it makes his heart clench in his chest.  
  
“Dean? Are you all right?” He asks softly, with his worried-father wrinkled brows.   
  
Something about the question knocks the wind right out of his chest and he has the urge to bend at the waist, rest his hands on his knees and gasp, but manages to quell it. Instead, he just lets out a gust of air, fingers clenching in his hair. “I -- yeah -- no? I, no... I dunno...” he mumbles out, tearing his eyes from Cas’s to stare at the speckled stone their feet are resting on. The Men of Letters would have shelled out a pretty penny for this kind of swaggy flooring, even back in the day, but Dean can’t help but admire their style.   
  
The fatherly concern is shoved aside in favor of an exasperated frown. “Why do you insist on trying to lie to me? It doesn’t work on me -- _can’t_ work on me. We’ve known each other far too long for that,” he points out. Dean can practically hear the ‘you idiot’ tacked on there, and he lets out a huff of self-conscious laughter.   
  
“I --” Dean’s throat closes up around his next words, the ones waiting in the wings of his mind, the ones his heart wants to speak, always does. His fingers loosen, fall from his hair and his hands settle at his hips, locking in there for support. “You made a joke... about -- about you dying again,” he manages, so very softly.   
  
Cas is quiet for a moment and then says, “Yes, I suppose I was. A... fairly sarcastic one, if anything.”  
  
Dean’s hands flutter around the worn-in waistband of his jeans, fingers twisting in the wash-softened denim and clutching there as he lets out another stricken huff of laughter. “I just -- you -- you never knew,” he says quietly, shaking his head. “What it was like, without you here. It w - it was bad, without you here, Cas. Real -- real bad.”  
  
There’s a touch of warm to his arm, just gently grasping above his elbow. “Dean,” Cas murmurs, voice strained with sadness. Regret. “I remember. It was -- the last thing I saw. Your face, the horror in your eyes as you saw what was happening.” There’s a soft laugh, then, and Dean feels his heart flinch. “I didn’t even realize it was happening to _me_. Or _what_ was happening to me. I felt nothing. Nothing except for my fear for you, for whatever must be causing that look on your face. Because if something could place that look of mortal terror on your face, then it must truly be terrible.”  
  
“It was like -- like being in the ocean, at night. Swimming. And I lose the lights at the shore. I lose the lights and I can’t get back, Cas,” he whispers, voice a tiny, trembling thing, even to his own ears. “I couldn’t get back.”  
  
“Dean.” Cas rumbles, voice deep and steady, as his arms slip around Dean, pull him in close, face shoved into the hollow of his shoulder, holding on tight. Hands strong and broad on his shoulder blades. “It wasn’t your fault,” he assures him, fingers pressing in against his flesh, trying to burn the truth there like another certain handprint so many years ago, now.   
  
“It wasn’t just that time, Cas,” he says, voice a croak. “It was -- it was all of them. Every... every time. And some of ‘em _were_ my fault.”  
  
Cas is quiet for a good, long while, his hand taking up a slow, soothing stroke against his back. “You weren’t the only one at fault, my friend,” he says, heart making his throat strain. “Those times, those mistakes have taught us much, though, I’d like to think. I can’t just say ‘that was the past, it’s time to move on’ or ‘forget about it’, as much as I might like to. It would be _easier_ , but it wouldn’t be the right thing to say.” Another low chuckle, this one with a hint of self-deprecation to it. “I don’t know what would be the right thing to say, in this instance, but I _wish_ I knew. The last thing I ever wanted was for you to feel this way because of me.”  
  
“So maybe no more jokes about God killing you for kicks?” Dean does his best to sniffle as quietly as possible. “’Cause i gotta tell ya, Cas - after seeing it happen right in front of me several times, now, it don’t get any easier... or funnier.”   
  
“Dean, you have my word,” Cas assures him, his voice velvety warm. His arms tighten around him, squeezing Dean in close to his chest, and his hand comes to rest on the nape of Dean’s neck. His fingers curl there, just ever so slightly, and he swallows, hard, trying to get the lump at the back of his throat to disappear, but it stubbornly remains. “When I was in Heaven, Naomi tried to ‘fix’ me. She reprogrammed me -- or, well, she tried to, at least.” He cants his head a fraction, pressing his cheek against Dean’s. “She had me kill you over and over, these phantom copies of you that all sounded just like you, looked just like you in every way, and she forced me to kill you over and over again, until I could do it without hesitating.”  
  
Dean’s hands are suddenly like steel around Cas’s arms, then. “Cas?” He chokes out. “She did that to you?”  
  
“Yes,” he admits, that same shame and sadness coloring his words. “It took me hundreds of attempts before I could kill you in less than ten minutes. Most of the time, I would just wound you and then not be able to do another thing, but Naomi kept drilling into my head and tinkering with me until I became a cold and heartless killer, just like she wanted.” There’s a long breath from him and he gives the back of Dean’s neck another gentle squeeze. “Apologies. I -- I never meant to tell you those things, but... I just didn’t want you to feel alone, like you were the only one who felt like they’d lost their lights.”  
  
“But you’re here now,” Dean whispers, arms sliding around Cas properly, then, and holding on. “We’re here.”  
  
“Yes, we are.” The fondness in Cas’s words makes something in Dean’s chest feel like it’s gone molten.  
  
Dean pulls back, then, and his hands settle on either side of his face, cradling his head in those powerful, scarred hands of his and meets his gaze squarely. “Good. Let’s keep it that way, okay.” He doesn’t make it a question, because for him, it’s not. It can’t be. Because the thought of Cas _not being okay_ ever again just isn’t okay with him, not anymore. Not being safe, not by his side. It just won’t do.  
  
Dean drags him in for a kiss and the immovable object meets his unstoppable force’s lips in the middle of a warm, exasperated smile. He doesn’t answer for a while, but they have other things they need to be getting on with. Namely making sure that they never have to be without the other by their side, ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by a Tumblr post about Dean cradling Cas's face in his hands but ALSO something of a fix-it (of a sort) because Dean telling Cas 'then you're dead to me' in season 14 after the events that took place in early season 13 just felt extremely wrong, to me. So here's this instead, because Dean's been getting better and using his words and I figured it was probably about time he finally talked about the elephant in the room.

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of the fics I created just for my SPN Tumblr fam. Feel free to stop by and say hey! You can also find alllll of my SPN meta over there, which informs a lot of the writing you'll see here: https://rogueangelshunter.tumblr.com/
> 
> Also - kudos are wonderful and lovely and much appreciated, but comments keep me well-fed and motivated!
> 
> Thanks for reading! :D


End file.
